Corporate Heroes
by Murphydog3
Summary: In a world where people with incredible abilities or NEXTs have come about heroes are an important part of life in New York City. Corporations see the upside of having these heroes working for and promoting them. Percy Jackson is the newest hero to be joining HERO TV as the hero Riptide. A new threat is emerging, will Percy be able to stop it? Based on PJO & Tiger and Bunny.
1. A New Hero

A New Hero

 _On Hero TV_

" _This is the final episode for this season of Hero TV and it is incredibly exhilarating. A NEXT Calling himself the Minotaur has taken the entirety of the Williamson Bridge hostage. Civilians are trapped in their cars terrified that this Giant Next will find them. Police are on the scene but where are our city's heroes?" The Minotaur was a giant of a man standing at nearly 8 feet tall and built like a bodybuilder. He wore a bull helmet and carried a large omega shaped axe. His torso was bare, and he wore simple jeans most likely believing that his strong powers would protect him from most if not all harm. The coops had the bridge closed off and where trying to get the civilians to safety, but they were hesitant to fire at the next because they did not want to hit any innocents._

 _Suddenly A hero flies out from the clouds, "And the first Hero to arrive is Whirlwind we expect nothing less from our King of Heroes!"_

 _Whirlwind rocketed out of the sky and created two balls of concentrated wind in his hands throwing them at the villain. When they collided with the giant of a man, they pushed him back a little but did nothing except make him mad. The Minotaur roared and waved his axe at the flying hero._

" _Whirlwind leveled two attacks at this villain but they did nothing to stop him. How powerful is this NEXT if he can shrug off two blows from our King of Heroes?"_

 _The other heroes of New York City were starting to arrive at the scene. Phantom, Charm, Shifter, Lady Lightning, Gem, and Shadow King have all arrived at the bridge. Each of them were trying to figure out the best way to take down this NEXT._

 _Suddenly the Minotaur found a car that still had civilians in it. There was a mother and her two young children. The villain picked up the car and started to walk over to the edge of the bridge. The family was screaming, the mother held her children and tried to alleviate their fears. Telling the children, it would be okay. When the Minotaur got close enough to the edge, he threw the car without even hesitating. The heroes lept into action but it was too late. The car was falling, and no one could reach it. Until out of nowhere a figure shot out of the water and grabbed the falling car. It looked as if the water was pushing him upwards. He landed on the bridge and placed the car down gently. When he laid the car down it allowed everyone to see him. This new hero, for that was all he could be was tall and powerful, while Whirlwind and Shifter had the physique of football players this man was a swimmer. He had wild jet-black hair that was tousled in the wind and while he had just come out of the water, he wasn't even wet. His costume rippled the torso of the suit looked like it was made of a pattern of blue scales. His pants were simple and black with what looked to be fins at the heels, his feet were barefoot. His arms were bare accept for a pair of simple silver bracers that adorned his forearms. He wore a mask that covered the top of his face and outlined his jaw but left his nose to his chin bare and allowed his hair to be free._

 _The Minotaur looked on in shock that someone new had come out, but his shock quickly turned to anger. He charged at this new hero, head down trying to impale this hero, however this new comer quickly sidestepped the behemoth and grabbed onto one of the horns. With planted feet the hero turned using the villain's momentum against him and with all his strength pulled. The Minotaur's feet left the ground and the villain circled around the hero like a twister. After a few seconds the horn snapped off the helmet and the villain crashed into a support beam. Within moments of landing the new hero landed one last punch and the beast was down._

 _The announcer of Hero TV cried out, "Who is this new mystery hero who handled this situation so well? What an exciting finale to this season of HERO TV!"_

And with that the cameras went dark.

Percy's POV

I watched as everyone started to come towards me. I wasn't actually technically supposed to make my debut right now, but I saw on the news that there was trouble and I couldn't just do nothing. So, I did the only thing I could think of before the heroes came over to me. I jumped off the bridge and into the water. Now I will admit that it probably wasn't the best idea but whatever. As I went over to the side the heroes started to yell for me to come over, they wanted to talk to me. I quickly jumped into the water as they rushed to stop me. Whirlwind went down to the surface of the water to find me but by the time he got down there I was already miles away. I swam until I got to an old abandoned warehouse that had been outfitted by my dad to serve as my sort of secret base and HQ, besides the training center that all the heroes used my dad wanted me to have a space that was all my own. When I arrived at my base, I saw that my dad was already there. He was smiling the moment I got out of the water he hugged me. "Percy that was incredible, you handled that situation so well I am so proud of you."

I smiled, that was one of the nice things about living in the city, I was able to see my dad more. Ever since we had moved to the Jersey Shore, seeing dad had always been work. As the CEO of Poseidon Inc., he worked a lot and was usually needed in the city. I mean it had been awesome to live at the beach, especially with my powers and all but in all honesty, I was a city boy at heart.

My dad was still smiling as he continued, "Remember now tonight you have to go to the ceremony that crowns the King of Heroes. It will also be where we introduce you and you can meet the other heroes. Tomorrow you will meet them all on a more personal basis. But remember not to stay too late at the party tonight, you have your first day of school tomorrow, don't want to be late."

I sighed, I knew I had to go to school and I accepted it, but it was so boring and besides I didn't want to have to make new friends just to lie to them and cancel on plans constantly because of being a hero. At least though Grover would be there, and I could actually talk to him about all this. But I made a brave face and said, "Of course I won't be late to school tomorrow."

Dad laughed he could tell the thought of my first day was going to suck, "Don't worry about it, one more year of school and then you can devote your time to be a hero and other pursuits." His cell phone rang, and he read an email, "I have to go Percy, but I will see you later tonight, though I won't break your identity, so I will keep things to a minimum. I love you, and you did great." He gave me a final hug and left, and I looked around my HQ. I had been here before, but it still was awesome to see. The colors were my favorite, everything was blue and white with some black and it just looked cool. There was a lounge area that had a huge tv, a sweet gaming system a super comfy couch along with a mini fridge. There was a fully stocked kitchen because heroics was hungry work. There was a large computer that I could use to run diagnostics on the suit and keep track of leads on criminals and files on them. Oh, the suit that reminded me that I hadn't taken it off. I laid my hand across my bracer and the bracer scanned my handprint. When the scan was finished the nanobots that comprised my suit crawled over to my left arm and recreated the watch that would release the nanobots on my command. Now I had no idea how on earth this worked but my friend Beckendorf created this and his NEXT power was Technopathy, so I didn't ask any questions.

I looked at the time and saw that it was nearing 5 o'clock and my mom would kill me if I didn't make it home for dinner. I quickly left the warehouse and started a brisk walk home to our apartment near the Queensboro bridge. It took me nearly half an hour to get home, but it wasn't a big deal, dinner was at 5:30 and the Hero Ceremony wasn't until 7. When I got home the delicious smell of pasta filled my nose and I saw that my Mom had made lasagna. I was glad because after today I was hungry. My abilities were incredibly powerful but at the same time they taxed my body more than a regular NEXT, so I had to eat a lot in order to keep up the energy. You see all NEXTs only had one ability I somehow have two. That sort of thing is kind of unheard of and I don't know why or how but somehow it happened. You see ever since I was a baby, I could control parts of the natural world, I have full control over water, being able to freeze it melt it manipulate it, create it and so much more. I have partial control over the earth, mostly being that when I'm feeling really raw and powerful emotions, I can cause earthquakes. Small ones where a common occurrence when I was really young and had very little control. I can't use fire, but I can see in infrared and pretty much can't be burned. And wind is a bit like the earth I can create it but I don't have the nuanced control of Whirlwind, basically I can whip the winds into a frenzy and make a storm but that's it. Now that power is incredibly powerful but when I was 15, I learned that I had a passive ability as well, I was invincible, and that power increased my strength, speed, stamina, agility, eyesight, hearing and basically all my physical abilities to awesome levels. I learned this by getting hit by a car, not a fun time.

Shaking my head out to clear my thoughts I walked into the kitchen and saw my Mom, (Sally Jackson, pretty much the best person on earth) playing peekaboo with my baby sister Estelle (Ok well half-sister but whatever, also she's the awesome baby on Earth.) Estelle is a year and a half old and the daughter of my mom and my step dad Paul who is also a pretty cool guy. My mom came over and hugged me when she saw me, and Estelle started to make grabbing motions and saying, "Pewcy, Pewcy" She couldn't yet say Percy and it was adorable. I hugged my mom and picked up Estelle, automatically going into an easy rocking motion. "So, I saw you on TV," Mom said to me rather matter of factly. "You were so brave saving that family from that villain. But please be careful. You don't want to give your mother a heart attack do you." I felt guilty I really did. I knew that doing this would make my mom worry about me constantly, but I had to do this. Ever since that group had sent that guy calling himself Nemesis to my house, I had to find out more. Something big was going to happen soon and I had to act. Besides I was powerful, and I could handle this, I wasn't going to let people get hurt because I didn't act.

I smiled at mom to try and alleviate her worries, it didn't work but I know she appreciated the effort. We set the table and by the time everything was ready Paul had returned home from work. He worked as an English teacher at Goode High School now which coincidentally (or really not so much) was the school I was starting at tomorrow. Dinner was a fairly quiet and quick affair just because my parents knew that I had to get ready for the ceremony.

I got dressed quickly though I don't think it really mattered I would be in costume the whole night. I went to HQ and got my suit on from there I hopped on my motorcycle Blackjack (I needed a bike because not everywhere was accessible from water. And awesomely enough I could call my bike to my location from pretty much anywhere in the city. Now I needed to use it to get to Madison Square Garden. I had to be introduced to everyone.

On my drive over to the Garden I thought about this whole thing. I honestly wasn't sure how i felt about the whole commercialization of heroes. I mean companies sponsored us and I trust my dad and I get the reasons for it but should heroes really be at the whims of others or should heroes stand apart from that and be symbols of only justice. It was a difference between practicality and ideology. Companies had the money for heroes, but that also gave them leverage over them. But this wasn't the right time to think about this so I focused on making it to the Ceremony.

When I arrived, I waited backstage for what felt like forever. I listened to the Announcer of Hero TV talk about the courage displayed this season and a bunch in the preamble, then he went on to announce who this Season's King of Heroes was and to no one's surprise it was Whirlwind. I had to admit he was a good hero, but he came off as too stiff, Whirlwind was very rigid and kinda seemed a little too perfect. Finally, though the announcement of the King of Heroes was done and my dad stepped onto the stage.

"Now I know everyone here must be surprised to see me up on this stage tonight considering Poseidon Inc has never had its own Hero. That changes tonight though, and it is with the greatest pleasure that I introduce our first hero Riptide!" Well that's my cue I thought, and I walked onto the stage I could see that all eyes were on me. The heroes were all looking at me and there was a seriously beautiful blonde hero who caught my eye. Before I let myself get too distracted, I made my way up to the podium. I stood there next to my dad and the cameras started to flash everyone was taking our pictures. "Riptide is an incredible young man who I know will protect this city with everything he has. He has just recently been approved by the Justice Bureau and granted a license. I believe that together with the other incredible heroes gathered here Riptide will help make this city even safer. His power is called Natural Control. This ability allows him to control the elements in the natural world. I would explain more but that would take all the fun out of it. Thank you everyone and I look forward to all of you seeing what I see in Riptide." With that my father and I walked off stage. The other heroes quickly exited the stage as well.

I thought that I was going to see the other heroes, but they ended up going a different way. Oh well I guess I would meet them tomorrow. I started to walk away when I came face to face with one of the heroes, Phantom the beautiful blonde who if I wasn't mistaken had the power to turn herself and anything, she touches invisible. Like really face to face, I almost walked into her. Now that I was close, I could see that her eyes were a steely gray like they were analyzing me, searching for the best way to take me down. She was also tall and very fit, I'm 6'2 and she was probably around 5'10. Before anything else I offered up my hand, "Hey I'm Riptide, it's nice to meet you." I smiled.

She looked me over once more before accepting my hand, and smiled back, "Phantom, nice to meet you too. We can exchange real names when there are no cameras and all around." I was surprised when I realized how strong she was. For a person who didn't have any strength powers she was pretty strong. Before we could talk anymore, we were both shuffled off to the party.

This party was super boring, and I didn't even get a chance to talk to any of the other heroes. I actually cut out pretty early because I was just bored as hell.

I got back home at 10 o'clock and passed out in my bed. I was not looking forward to starting school tomorrow.


	2. Even Heroes Need School

Even Heroes Need School

When I woke up in the morning, I was still tired, still I got myself out of bed, took a shower, and ate some breakfast. When I had arrived Mom and Estelle were already in the kitchen. Mom was trying to get Estelle to eat but Estelle was just having too much fun refusing to eat. I grabbed Estelle and started to feed her. She ate for me without any fuss and my mom just looked over at us exasperated. I put Estelle down and went over to grab my backpack. I was just about to leave when Mom stopped me. She looked at me with this look in her eyes that I couldn't place. "Percy, I want you to promise me that you will be safe. I know that this is who you are, and this is what you have to do and I don't want to take that away from you. I don't want to stop you especially after what happened back at the Shore." She said.

I still couldn't place exactly what the look in her eyes was, but I said, "I promise I'll be careful."

She looked at me like she didn't believe me, she looked at me like she already knew what fate had in store for me and that it wasn't pleasant. It wouldn't be until much later, after I had completed some of my first real trials as a hero when I realized what I had seen in her eyes, resignation, resignation and fear.

After that strange conversation with my mom I started on my walk to school. It was the first day of my Senior year of high school. It was great being back in the city, I had never really made friends with the kids from back at the Shore. I always thought of myself more as a city boy and to be honest most of them were terrified of my powers. Honestly that part sucked but I still had some friends from here I would visit when I would spend a weekend with my dad or when they wanted to come to the beach, so it was going to be nice to hang with Grover whenever I really wanted. So at least I didn't leave any best friends back at the shore.

My walk to school took me about 15 minutes and when I arrived, I walked into the office. Paul had shown me some of the school a few weeks ago so I had some idea about how to get around. When I made my way into the office there was a very beautiful blonde girl who looked strangely familiar to me, but I shook it off it wasn't like I really knew anyone here. I gave a small wave and she did the same back to me. I walked over to the lady behind the desk and said, "Hi I'm Percy Jackson I'm new here."

She smiled back at me and said, "Ah Perseus," I winced, I hate when people call me by my full name, "Here is your schedule and all of the papers that you will need. Miss Chase over there will show you to all of your classes today."

I smiled at her, "Thank you and please just call me Percy."

She smiled back at me. Miss Chase over there stood up when she heard her name. She walked over to me and smiled. Again, she looked really familiar, but I wasn't quite sure of who she was. "Hey, I'll walk you over to your homeroom. Here let me take a peek at your schedule." I handed her my schedule without complaint and she said, "Ok it looks like we are in the same homeroom with a Mr. Blofis. I guess he must be new this year because I've never met him. It looks like we have Lunch, Gym, English and Greek together so at least you will have one friendly face in some classes."

We were walking to homeroom, "Thanks for this, I actually know Mr. Blofis, he's my stepdad. My family just moved back to the city from the Jersey Shore. Oh, by the way I'm Percy Jackson." I outstretched my hand and as she grabbed it and said, "Annabeth Chase," we both made direct eye contact, her eyes were steel gray. Between the handshake and the eye contact I was able to place her in a second and I could tell that she had done the same thing because at the same time we both gasped and said,

"Phantom!"

"Riptide!"

Afterwards both our eyes widened, and we looked around, thankfully no one was around. This was weird as hell I mean, what were the odds that the two of us would go to the same school, much less have her be my tour guide on my first day?

"It didn't seem like either of us really knew what to say at the moment, so I said, "Well at least I don't have to lie about why I'm always leaving to everyone. Well not everyone, I wasn't planning on lying to Grover because he's my best friend." 

Annabeth looked at me weird, "Wait you know Grover?"

"Yeah ever since we were kids, he's my best friend. Wait you know Grover?"

After that Annabeth told me the story of how she and Grover met, apparently one day Annabeth's dog ran away. She searched for hours with no luck until Grover came back to her house with him. Grover had found him in the park and saw his collar, recognizing the family name and all he took the dog back to the Chase household and ever since they had been friends.

"Oh my God you're the guy Grover wanted me to meet! He's been telling me for weeks that his best friend was coming back and that we had to meet. I had no idea that was you!"

We decided then and there that we would take away the pleasure of introducing us away from him.

Annabeth showed me to homeroom. Nothing really happened in that 15-minute period except Paul called all of our names and gave us our seats.

After the bell rang Annabeth brought me over to my first class of the day Physics, honestly what a boring class to start my day off with. My teacher, Dr. Boring (I kid you not his name is Dr. Boring) went over classroom rules and just that.

In all honesty nothing really happened until lunch, each of my teachers made everyone introduce themselves, had us pick or assigned us seats and they went over what they expected of us and the classroom rules.

As Annabeth had told me earlier in the day, we did have some of the same classes and whenever we did, she would sit with me or chat. Between each class she would also show me around from place to place. We talked a lot about just school and a little about each other. I learned a lot about her and it was really cool, she was awesome, and I could see us becoming really good friends.

Lunch was the best part of my day by far. While Grover and I were in Math (besides my math class wasn't until after lunch) and Home Ec together we didn't really get a chance to hang until lunch. Besides Annabeth and I really wanted to see what his reaction would be.

I arrived at the lunch room and walked onto the line so that I could buy my lunch. Today was chicken nuggets with mac and cheese and green beans. (The green beans were gross but everything else was actually pretty good.) Moving on though after I got my lunch, I started to look around the lunch room searching for Grover and Annabeth. I didn't see them for a minute but then I heard Grover's voice shout to me, "Hey Percy over here!"

I looked over and saw Grover waving at me. Now Grover was the most environmentally friendly person I had ever met, and he dressed like it. Today was no different as he was wearing his favorite "RECYCLING" shirt. As I got a little closer, I saw that Grover hadn't really changed all that much ever since I had last seen him about 6 months ago. He was a little taller, and his goatee was a little bit fuller, but his curly brown hair was still tucked into that same Rasta cap he loved. As soon as I got close enough Grover gave me a hug, I eagerly returned it. It was so nice to see my best friend again after all this time.

Grover looked behind him and I saw Annabeth standing there. Grover got this gleam in his eye and was about to introduce us when I nonchalantly said, "Oh hey Annabeth what's up?" The way Grover's face dropped when I said that to him was priceless, he was so disappointed. Neither Annabeth or I could keep ourselves from laughing.

As soon as I stopped laughing, I said, "Annabeth has actually been my tour guide for the day. She has been showing me around and all." After Annabeth and I told all this to Grover the three of us started to talk. Apparently, Grover also knew that Annabeth was Phantom, apparently something happened, and Grover saw that she turned invisible. Afterwards it was pretty easy to figure out that she was the hero who could turn invisible.

When lunch finished, I only had one more class Algebra. It was so boring, and I am so bad at math so this would be a difficult class.

After that first day of school was done, (Or as I like to call it the day of the obscenest amount of coincidences, it was like the guy writing the story of my life was just too lazy to do anything but just make everything a coincidence.) I started to walk over towards the Hero training center. When suddenly I was bumped in the shoulder by Annabeth. She smiled at me and said, "I bet I know where you are going," I smiled back, I was finding out that hanging around Annabeth was easy. I felt like I had known her for a while.

"So how did you like your first day at Goode?" She asked me.

"I really liked it! I mean some of the people there are a little crazy I mean I met this blonde girl who I swear she's obsessed with me. I mean geez I get it I'm lovable but you're coming on strong." I smiled as I said that.

Annabeth laughed, "Shut up, jerk." but she was smiling so I don't think she was really calling me a jerk. I know because I'm perceptive like that.

Our walk over to the training center was like that, easy conversation with a lot of laughs. Annabeth told me a little about the others and what her experiences had been like this year. This was going to be her 6th year as a hero having started when she was 11. I knew she had started as a hero young, but I was still shocked that she started at 11. She really knew a lot about what it took to be a hero.

After a few minutes we arrived at the training center. I knew that once I walked into those doors, I would be a hero, I could turn around or I could go through. I didn't hesitate to go through. I looked around it was a state-of-the-art place. Annabeth gave me the tour of the place, I joked that if she gave me one more tour, I'd have to start paying her. We shared a laugh it was a good time. We finally made our way to the gym where all the other heroes were waiting for us. None of them was in costume which was pretty cool. All together there were Seven of them.

The first guy that walked up to me was a blonde dude with sky blue eyes who was probably about 25. He was definitely a handsome guy and the dude had muscles like serious muscles but not in the way that look like steroids, just a sort of I work out kind of muscles. He was dressed in business casual with a nice pair of gray slacks and a blue dress shirt. There were two flaws in his appearance that made him look a human and less like a statue, he had a small scar on the corner of his lip and there was a grove in his hair like he had been grazed by a bullet. It wasn't until he stretched out his hand to me that I noticed on his forearm that he had a tattoo of an eagle. "I'm Jason Grace, but my hero name is Whirlwind, it's a pleasure to meet you I look forward to protecting the city with you." I wasn't all that surprised when he told me that he was Whirlwind, there was a tension in his shoulders, like he could never put down the weight of the world.

Before I could get in a word to Jason a really pretty brunette with kaleidoscope eyes and who looked to be of Native American descent. She was dressed simply in jeans and a tee, like she really didn't care about what she wore out of the house. She like Jason was probably in her early to mid-20's. She leveled a huge smile at me and said, "I'm Piper but my hero name is Charm," she smiled deviously, "So how do you and Annabeth know each other?"

I blushed, I don't know why but I did. I looked over at Annabeth and saw that she was blushing too. I didn't know what else to say so I just replied, "We met at school today, and we both realized who the other was. She actually was my tour guide today and she and I are both friends with this guy named Grover." I was rubbing the back of my neck and I could feel that all the blood was still rushing to my face. I couldn't even meet Piper's eyes, I looked at Annabeth and she was in a similar position as me, red faced and no ability to make eye contact. There was no reason for us to be embarrassed but the way Piper implied stuff just caught me off guard.

Before I had to explain myself any further and maybe embarrass myself more a Chinese guy walked over and said, "Hey I'm Shifter but you can call me Frank." When I say this dude is huge, I mean like 6'5 and built like a wrestler or a football player. This was a dude who could probably bench a person on each arm like it was nothing. He had a kind face though like he couldn't hurt a fly, though his military haircut and general appearance would lead people to believe the opposite. I wasn't sure how old Frank was, but I assumed he was probably about 27

The next and final person to come up to me was an African-American girl with curly brown hair she was probably about 25, "I'm Hazel, I also go by Gem when I'm doing Hero work." She was pretty but the thing that stood out to me the most about her where her eyes, they were pure gold. She was short probably the shortest out of everyone here being only around 5'5.

After I had met all of the others, I decided to tell everyone a little about myself, "Hey guys it's really nice to meet all of you, my name is Percy I guess I'm also going to be going by Riptide pretty soon. My power allows me to manipulate the elements each to different levels and power levels. I am from New York City but a few years ago my family moved down to the Jersey Shore. We only moved back about 2 weeks ago."

Before I could continue Jason, interrupted me, "Wait wasn't there a huge NEXT battle down in Asbury Park about a month ago? After the initial reports we didn't hear anything about it."

I answered as honestly as I could, "Yeah half of that was me. This NEXT calling himself Nemesis approached me on the beach. He told me to come with him or else he would kill my family. Long story short we started to fight, and I realized that everything I was doing to him was also hurting me at three times the strength. So, I held him underwater, I can't drown so I didn't feel the effect of his powers. He passed out and I leveled about 3 blocks worth of beachfront property. After that my family and I decided that it was time for me to become a hero. So that's a little about me. I look forward to getting to know all of you better." I smiled, and everyone seemed happy with that.

"Well now that the meet and greet is over let's go train!" Jason said with his arms outstretched.


End file.
